Topic: Modeling All the Way Up, Modeling All the Way Down
Speaker: Richard Soley, Chairman & CEO - OMG™

The Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), since its introduction in 2000, has grown rapidly into the way that responsible, agile, configurable systems get built. Every major software development tool and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) tool in the world now supports model-driven application development, using the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

But MDA was never just about software, nor specifically about code generation. Recently the "MDA pattern" (capturing the single semantics behind multiple syntaxes and multiple blueprints) has been applied outside the software area, and in order to capture more business value: more agile business, delivered better, faster and cheaper.

Dr. Soley will address the concepts of modeling as they apply to business agility, pulling together the threads of business modeling, software modeling, portfolio modeling and systems modeling with a single metamodeling framework standing behind them to enable better, faster, cheaper, interoperable and portable solutions.

http://www.omg.org/~soley/

Topic: Business Process Management and Software Development with MDA®
Speaker: Andrew Watson, Vice President and Technical Director - OMG™

IT systems are indispensable in running a modern business, but with their success and ubiquity have come many problems. Building strategic enterprise systems is a risky undertaking, with 15% of all IT projects failing to deliver anything at all, and another 50% falling short of their original specifications. The huge rate of Information Technology churn means that every new application is built on a different mix of technologies, and re-engineering last year's application to use this year's technology is too risky and expensive, so users are forced to make the resulting mismatched collection of systems work together somehow. As a result, IT costs eat up an ever-larger proportion of business running costs for an ever-decreasing return.

This talk describes OMG's MDA® initiative, which helps solve these problems with design tools that help build applications that are insulated from changes in the underlying implementation technology. MDA® tool chains act as "skill amplifiers", allowing application designers and programmers to rapidly create applications with low defect rates that not only work with multiple delivery platforms such as J2EE and .Net, but can easily be adapted to cope with future technology trends.

Topic: Legacy Modernization and Enterprise Integration with MDA & SOA
Speaker: Charles Dickerson, Senior Vice President - Relativity Technologies Inc.

It is imperative that organizations can adapt quickly to address new market opportunities and competitive threats. This requires the ability to adapt the enterprise applications that automate and control organizations' business processes. However most of the world's leading businesses continue to rely on legacy applications to support their business processes. While these legacy applications are generally robust, over time they become more complex and brittle, severely hindering the ability of an organization to adjust to new challenges. For instance, altering business logic, adding new products, or integrating via Web Services can be more difficult due to legacy applications' complexity and architecture.

To address this need the OMG's Architecture Driven Modernization (ADM) task force was convened. The overall goals of the ADM task force are to:

• Provide and deploy standards needed to:
  • Better understand and revitalize existing applications
  • Make existing applications more responsive to changing business requirements
  • Enable modernization vendors to deliver more standardized solutions to organizations
• Leverage existing OMG modeling standards and the MDA initiative
• Consolidate best practices leading to successful modernization

Mr. Dickerson will discuss the progress made to date by the ADM task force, discuss applicable ADM scenarios and review the roadmap towards achieving the task force's goals. Additionally, he will discuss real world case studies that demonstrate the value of using an ADM-driven modernization approach. This will include metrics that quantify the benefits in a maintenance and enhancement environment, case studies of mining business rules in order to model legacy systems, and a look at how the remediation of legacy applications can reduce costs and open applications to web services.

Topic: Modeling for Practitioners: Terminologies, Trends, and Tools
Speaker for Mumbai: Sanjay Mohan, Senior Manager - IBM-Rational
Speaker for Bangalore: Bama Ramesh, Advisory product Services Specialist - IBM Rational

Modeling tools are used in different ways by different designers and users. However, there are some basic flows and fundamental themes that guide the pattern of usage. This presentation covers some of these common usage patterns and touches upon the context under which these flows are applicable. As MDA is gaining momentum in the industry, these "theories of operation" have also evolved. Modeling tools have evolved to fit better within the MDA framework. The discussions also touches upon some aspects of the modeling tools from IBM-Rational, namely, the Rational Software Architect, and demonstrates some of these existing and evolving usage patterns.

- Profile of Sanjay Mohan
- Profile of Bama Ramesh

Topic: Design considerations in applying BPM and MDA
Speaker for Bangalore: Srinivas Thonse, Principal Architect - Software Engineering & Technology Labs

Applying BPM and MDA requires a shift in the way applications are built and maintained. It requires adoption of many standards such as BPMN, UML and MOF, and use of new modeling tools and execution infrastructure. To apply these practices effectively in IT projects, a designer needs to keep in mind certain key aspects. Typical considerations involve ensuring longevity of the models and synchronizing the models across lifecycle phases. In this presentation, we will discuss a few key considerations that a designer has to bear in mind when applying these standards and some means to handle them.

Topic: Model Driven Engineering at Motorola
Speaker for Bangalore: G Bhaskar Rao, Senior Staff Engineer - Motorola

MDE has been successfully deployed in various infrastructure projects at Motorola, particularly in India, with SDL, UML-2, TTCN-2 and TTCN-3 languages, Telelogic Tools and more than half-a-dozen of Motorola Proprietary tools. Our findings have been good in-terms of cycle time, productivity, quality, post-release defects, etc compared with traditional practices we were following. Several challenges were faced during the initial days of induction from the development community, including resistance to change. The management played a significant role to make the induction process easier.

My presentation outlines integrated model driven engineering approach that we have adapted, details of the automation tools that enabled and enhanced modeling capability and maturity, along with the challenges and benefits that we have seen along the process. My presentation also provides guidelines on how to use the technology and the strategies that the new companies can adopt in their organizations for adapting MDE.